Category Archives: Drama

2016 is shaping up to be a brilliant Literary year already! The York Literature Festival is bigger and better than ever, the RSC are doing Dr Faustus (an A2 text, but also just brilliant so go and see it even if you’re not studying it!) and the final book of Justin Cronin’s post-apocalyptic trilogy is finally being released…

The York Literature Festival is huge and runs from 10th – 23rd March. I’ve already booked my ticket to see Carol Ann Duffy (I’m so excited!) and I’m eyeing up a few more rather impressive looking events too. There’s a poetry writing competition, Literary walks, talks, readings, theatre and so much more. It looks like it’ll be a superb couple of weeks so do make the most of the fact that we’re lucky enough to have it on our doorstep!

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I re-read this article today and got very, very annoyed. It’s about the government’s EBacc, about ‘academic’ and ‘creative’ subjects and about how a ‘rigorous’ education is more important than an artistic one.

To me it’s funny that English is considered one of the ‘hard’ subjects that makes for a ‘rigorous’ education, as opposed to one of the ‘creative’ subjects that the government doesn’t seem to value anywhere near as much. Obviously I think it’s a vital subject, but I think its importance lies in that it teaches us to think. I also think that it’s not necessarily ‘English’, the language, that’s important. In English lessons, in English speaking countries, we’re teaching three fundamentally important things, and only one of them is to do with the language specifically. Yes, we’re teaching communication in the English language, and that is necessary for both English speakers and those who want to be English speakers. In that sense, English is on a par with any other language, and it’s this element that the government seems to consider makes it ‘hard’ and therefore ‘worthy’.

The other aspects of the subject that make it so freaking wonderful though, are nothing to do with being able to recognise bias in journalism, or punctuate a sign, or write a letter to an employer.

Through Literature we learn how other people think the world works, and we learn how to tell the world what we think about that. There is nothing more creative than exploring and analysing other people’s dreams and views, and showing your own to them. Literature is inextricably linked to ‘the creative subjects’, to Drama, to Art, to Music, and it is also linked to ‘the academic subjects’, to History, and even to Maths and Science, subjects which some people mistakenly think it is impossible to be simultaneously interested in if you are a ‘bookish’ sort of person. Reading, understanding, exploring and responding to a poem is not a ‘hard’ skill that children need to learn so they can get jobs as lawyers and accountants and doctors and all the other jobs that we aspire for our children to have. It is the very essence of creativity. It is a skill, for sure, that can help children get those jobs, but it is also a skill that can help children make sense of the world in which they live, can make them emotionally mature and secure people, and can give them the tools to make a difference where they want to, whether as lawyers or mothers or binmen.

It is saying, ‘why was Wordsworth ‘wandering’? Why wasn’t he striding purposefully? Why wasn’t he running? What was he thinking? Who was he with? Why? What was I thinking about the last time I took a walk? What is the point of exploring the field over there, or the world? What might I discover? What do I want to say about it? Why is it important to say whatever that is? Or why should I not say it at the moment? What can I learn from other people who think the same thing, or the opposite thing, or a thing somewhere in the middle? What can we learn from each other?’

It is clear that these questions (and the hundreds of others we could ask) easily lend themselves to further exploration in other subjects-Arts, Sciences, Humanities…the world is multifaceted and so is a good education. What a waste of time and energy if a child who is a talented musician isn’t able to explore some of these ideas through writing harmonies or exploring how to convey the poem’s emotion on the piano, or a child who is interested in science and drama (yes! they coexist!) can’t be inspired to examine things like human psychology through devising, or the vital crossover between personal growth, scientific discovery and morality through plays like Copenhagen.

So yes, English is important, and indeed, in my biased view, it is one of the most important subjects we teach. But to split subjects into ‘academic’ and ‘creative’ and to assign more value to one group than to the other, is to completely miss the point.

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So last week’s book was The Picture of Dorian Gray and this week’s will be Heart of Darkness. I seem to have a bit of a gothic (or even Gothic) theme going on – it must be that time of year!

With Halloween just around the corner, how better to stop the frightfest than to come on a Prep in York trip to the theatre to see The Importance of Being Ernest? We’ll be heading to the Grand Opera House in York on the evening of Wednesday 18th November so if you’d like to join us then get in touch asap as tickets are extremely limited and there are only a handful left! I earnestly hope you can make it…

Sorry!

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My favourite book as a child was…The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. When I was little I was fascinated by the pictures (snakes swallowing elephants, monstrous trees, tiny sheep…) but every time I re-read it now I understand something different from it about philosophy and faith. I have to read it at least once a year and I always give it to babies when they’re born. It feels appropriate!

My favourite book as a teenager was…Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. It’s haunting and beautiful and definitely not just a boy meets girl story. I always wanted a Mr Rochester rather than a Mr Darcy, but when I discovered Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea it was a revelation to me that characters – and people in real life – could have multiple lives. Re-reading Jane Eyre now, I can’t help but be swayed by Rhys’ evocation of Caribbean lushness and a woman so condemned to being ‘other’ that there’s nothing left for her but madness.

The best beach read is…Prospero’s Cell by Laurence Durrell. Especially if read on a beach in Corfu, followed by a hike to find the cliffs and cell in question! Durrell argues very convincingly that the island in The Tempest must be either Malta or Corfu, and that Corfu is the more likely. There’s an amazing little hermit’s cell near Kaminaki, perched on the cliffs above enormous rocks, and all the vegetation around it is knotty pines like the one Arial was trapped in. You can easily imagine a shipwreck, a monster and a magician appearing before you. Then, in the evening, after your hike, the best book to wind down with is My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, Laurence’s brother. It’s aimed at children but it’s hilarious, and makes it harder to take ‘Larry’ seriously.

The book I always have by my bed is…The Bible. I’ve always meant to read it cover to cover, but I tend to get half way through Exodus and give up. It’s fascinating to me, both as a spiritual and a historical text.

The book that changed my life is…Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. It’s about a girl embroiled in a civil war which threatens to destroy her family and her island. A man on the island decides that the only way to rescue the children is to educate them, but he only has one copy of one book, which is Great Expectations. Ultimately, Matilda learns the same lessons as Pip, but in a very modern context. It’s the only book which has ever made me burst into tears in public, when I was reading it on a train! I also love it because it’s about teaching, and about how literature can be a salve for all of us when times are tough. When I’ve had a long day at work it’s a brilliant reminder of what books can do for the human race, and makes me feel lucky to be able to talk about them all day.

My favourite non-fiction book is…the Dictionary!

My favourite play is…Richard II by Shakespeare. From John of Gaunt’s beautiful speech as a ‘prophet new inspir’d’ about ‘This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars’ that is the England which forms the prize and the battleground of all the History plays, to Richard’s heart-rending goodbye to his Queen before he is murdered, this is a play which looks at the character of the King and of kingship in such detail that the audience can’t help but empathise with him, even as they cheer on Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV.

My favourite poet is…John Milton, for everything he ever wrote but especially Paradise Lost. When I taught Book 9 for the first time I realised how powerful poetry can be. If it’s possible to sympathise so whole-heartedly with Satan ‘involv’d in rising mist’, what can’t poetry do?

The book I was supposed to like but didn’t was…Ulysses by James Joyce. I love A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners but Ulysses was just…boring.

If I could only read one book for the rest of my life it would be…The Complete Works of Shakespeare. I know it’s a cheat!